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HifiBerry AMP60 Stereo Amplifier Review

Rate this amplifier:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 55 32.9%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 90 53.9%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 19 11.4%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 3 1.8%

  • Total voters
    167

PeteL

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Absolutely, SINAD is the most informative singular condensed metric I've come across. Nothing sets the stage for expectations better than it with respect to fidelity concerns. Alone it obviously isn't as imperative if you have a constrained set of concerns (like if you're a passive speaker enthusiast, you have far bigger troubles with respect to power output almost always a thing that is lacking, and perhaps like PeteL, this is a more informative metric for your buying needs). But across the spectrum of all audio output devices, SINAD hasn't really been topped as an aggregate metric as being the most informative for setting the stage of what to expect with the rest of a device's fidelity preservation capability.

PeteL disagrees with me in totality on this claim, he takes SINAD to be quite literally meaningless in all instances. Since there was pedantic detail in our conversation, I don't he means it's actually definitionally useless, but obviously at the very least, he does consider it useless from an informative value perspective with respect to his concerns it seems.
You completely missed my point, but in all cases, I believe that Tony was asking to summarize your thoughts, not summarize mines.
 

Tks

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You completely missed my point, but in all cases, I believe that Tony was asking to summarize your thoughts, not summarize mines.

I didn't summarize your thoughts, I only summarized the thought of yours that I addressed in my post as relevant to my primary talking point. It's not clear how I "missed your point" though, seeing as how you made multiple statements and questions in your post, and I quoted whole sentences before replying to each and every one of them. So unless there's some unstated conclusion, or unstated premise in there that's supposed to be implicitly derived, can you simply make your point clear in your reply next time? Seeing as how I had enough trouble not catching it due to multiple inquiries you posed about my position. It's quite difficult to catch someone's "point" if their main reply has a decent amount of questions.
 

D!sco

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This is honestly pretty good performance for the price/application. Not hifi by any standards, but it's tiny and convenient. Might be fun to power a cheap, plastic, mobile setup. For HiFi use, I find the DAC Hats a better option. Very seamless integration with high quality streaming and network duties. Being able to write custom DSP is a huge bonus as well.
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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Thank you @amirm!
Do you ever get to a point during your testing, where you say "Oh, [expletive deleted] fohget about it!" and stop testing the hardware... because the results' analysis will require a nose-clip or a gas-mask?
Yes. I have had products here from members that I spent days on to get working but then give up. Companies also send me stuff that measures poorly even though they claimed otherwise. This is especially bad with speakers where it takes so much time to measure them. Real downer these occasions are.
 

PeteL

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Absolutely, SINAD is the most informative singular condensed metric I've come across. Nothing sets the stage for expectations better than it with respect to fidelity concerns. Alone it obviously isn't as imperative if you have a constrained set of concerns (like if you're a passive speaker enthusiast, you have far bigger troubles with respect to power output almost always a thing that is lacking, and perhaps like PeteL, this is a more informative metric for your buying needs). But across the spectrum of all audio output devices, SINAD hasn't really been topped as an aggregate metric as being the most informative for setting the stage of what to expect with the rest of a device's fidelity preservation capability.

PeteL disagrees with me in totality on this claim, he takes SINAD to be quite literally meaningless in all instances. Since there was pedantic detail in our conversation, I don't he means it's actually definitionally useless, but obviously at the very least, he does consider it useless from an informative value perspective with respect to his concerns it seems.
Look, There is so much here that I won't comment on everything, I'll let you take a breath, and take your time to re read the conversation, calmly. Like for a start assess why on earth you have to take this all so personally and as an attack, that would be a constructive beginning to a constructive discussion. It's not about you, I am not the one with the agressive tone here and who use terms like "pedantic". When someone tells you "I know it's cynical" It means "I ido not mean to make fun of your statement" It mean, "I admit this sounded a bit harsh" It means... Don't take this personally...

Maybe in second. Reread that sentence of your's:
-"Speaker amps I don't even use as I only used powered varients (not much a speaker guy, just use Vanatoo T1E's) so I wouldn't even be able to tell you what the objective performance of the DAC and AMP unit in that device even is. Speaker amp performance are a curiosity at best for me... (...)"

My whole point is that you can't rank a DAC (with in the case of the apple dongle the ability to drive sensitive earphones) on the same scale as a speaker Amp. And that Sinad, in both case are a performance metric out of others to assess performance. Now look at the very first sentence I responded to.

Maybe in third, try to assess where in this discussion I said anything to suggest that "He (I) takes SINAD to be quite literally meaningless in all instances".

That would be a start.

Breathe in, Breathe out.
 
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antcollinet

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Absolutely, SINAD is the most informative singular condensed metric I've come across. Nothing sets the stage for expectations better than it with respect to fidelity concerns. Alone it obviously isn't as imperative if you have a constrained set of concerns (like if you're a passive speaker enthusiast, you have far bigger troubles with respect to power output almost always a thing that is lacking, and perhaps like PeteL, this is a more informative metric for your buying needs). But across the spectrum of all audio output devices, SINAD hasn't really been topped as an aggregate metric as being the most informative for setting the stage of what to expect with the rest of a device's fidelity preservation capability.

PeteL disagrees with me in totality on this claim, he takes SINAD to be quite literally meaningless in all instances. Since there was pedantic detail in our conversation, I don't he means it's actually definitionally useless, but obviously at the very least, he does consider it useless from an informative value perspective with respect to his concerns it seems.
Thanks.
 

antcollinet

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Look, There is so much here that I won't comment on everything, I'll let you take a breath, and take your time to re read the conversation, calmly. Like for a start assess why on earth you have to take this all so personally and as an attack, that would be a constructive beginning to a constructive discussion. It's not about you, I am not the one with the agressive tone here and who use terms like "pedantic". When someone tells you "I know it's cynical" It means "I ido not mean to make fun of your statement" It mean, "I admit this sounded a bit harsh" It means... Don't take this personally...

Maybe in second. Reread that sentence of your's:
-"Speaker amps I don't even use as I only used powered varients (not much a speaker guy, just use Vanatoo T1E's) so I wouldn't even be able to tell you what the objective performance of the DAC and AMP unit in that device even is. Speaker amp performance are a curiosity at best for me... (...)"

My whole point is that you can't rank a DAC (with in the case of the apple dongle the ability to drive sensitive earphones) on the same scale as a speaker Amp. And that Sinad, in both case are a performance metric out of others to assess performance. Now look at the very first sentence I responded to.

Maybe in third, try to assess where in this discussion I said anything to suggest that "He (I) takes SINAD to be quite literally meaningless in all instances".

That would be a start.

Breathe in, Breathe out.
Also : thanks.
 

somebodyelse

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Not the EMC filter, the output low pass filter that removes the switching frequency. Pretty sure you need inductors for that, like those on the hifi berry.
One if the selling points of the Merus line is not needing the same degree of output filtering, and if you look at the internal pics of most of the amps using them you'll see they don't have the big expensive inductors. However if you look at the datasheet you'll see that they only suggest this for applications where the speaker cable is very short, as in active speakers and the like, and that for longer cables (pretty much anything practical with a standalone amp) they say you should have more filtering. I guess it's one of the situations where they can pass the letter of the EMC test by using a short cable instead of the long one that would be used in reality.
 

antcollinet

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One if the selling points of the Merus line is not needing the same degree of output filtering, and if you look at the internal pics of most of the amps using them you'll see they don't have the big expensive inductors. However if you look at the datasheet you'll see that they only suggest this for applications where the speaker cable is very short, as in active speakers and the like, and that for longer cables (pretty much anything practical with a standalone amp) they say you should have more filtering. I guess it's one of the situations where they can pass the letter of the EMC test by using a short cable instead of the long one that would be used in reality.
Again - it is not about EMC compliance. It is about sending high energy high frequncies to your speaker which will be dissipated as heat in the tweeter voice coil. Not to mention the risk of in speaker IMD reflection down to audible frequencies.
 

fordiebianco

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somebodyelse

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Again - it is not about EMC compliance. It is about sending high energy high frequncies to your speaker which will be dissipated as heat in the tweeter voice coil. Not to mention the risk of in speaker IMD reflection down to audible frequencies.
You and the EMC engineers want to reduce energy at high frequencies, even if the reason for wanting to do it is different. If the energy at high frequencies is low enough not to cause EMC issues with speaker cables attached it shouldn't be causing issues for your tweeter voice coils, or IMD issues that become audible. I think someone went looking for these effects in another thread, and could find no evidence that either was a problem in practice. Unfortunately my search fu is not strong enough to find it right now. IIRC the voice coil inductance helps reduce the high frequency current in the voice coil so there's little dissipation from it, and little sensitivity so not a lot to intermodulate with. I suppose this may not be true for some exotic tweeters.

Edit: I might be thinking of the discussion starting here, in which case there weren't measurements to back up the reasoning.
 
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ezra_s

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It's always nice to see how these little devices for pi perform, dacs amps, whatever, help put things in perspective comparing to the "big boys"
 

antcollinet

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You and the EMC engineers want to reduce energy at high frequencies, even if the reason for wanting to do it is different. If the energy at high frequencies is low enough not to cause EMC issues with speaker cables attached it shouldn't be causing issues for your tweeter voice coils, or IMD issues that become audible. I think someone went looking for these effects in another thread, and could find no evidence that either was a problem in practice. Unfortunately my search fu is not strong enough to find it right now. IIRC the voice coil inductance helps reduce the high frequency current in the voice coil so there's little dissipation from it, and little sensitivity so not a lot to intermodulate with. I suppose this may not be true for some exotic tweeters.

Edit: I might be thinking of the discussion starting here, in which case there weren't measurements to back up the reasoning.
Frequencies relevant for EMC radiated, are typically 30MHz and up, and relatively low energy.

PWM carrier frequency is typically around 400KHz square wave from the positive to the negative voltage rails - much higher energy. The filters needed are completely different.
 

pseudoid

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PeteL disagrees with me in totality on this claim, he takes SINAD to be quite literally meaningless in all instances.
I have no qualms about single SINAD number assigned to any equipment.... as long as that number is supported with graphical results supporting that otherwise 'stoopid' but not "meaningless" number.
Do you have a TL;DR version of that? :p
Our Amigo @amirm does SINAD right and just exactly the way it supposed to be done!
 
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Tks

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Look, There is so much here that I won't comment on everything, I'll let you take a breath, and take your time to re read the conversation, calmly. Like for a start assess why on earth you have to take this all so personally and as an attack,

I'm sure you would wish it was a personal attack, in the same way I imagine you wish you could divine people's emotions over a screen as accurately as you think you do. That would let you just handwave everything I said by calling to you getting triggered. But since that option isn't available to you, you're going to actually have to do the work of properly responding. I asked it be through PM's as to not spam the general thread, but I guess you want to leave things in that way. Or you perhaps didn't read this request I made in the same way I now have more reason to believe you basically didn't read my post in the first place (which would explain the silly claim of "not getting your point" when I evidently replied to every portion of your post with quotes).

It's not about you, I am not the one with the agressive tone here and who use terms like "pedantic".
Pedantry isn't aggression, and I remain confident you'll not be able to spin it in a way where it would seem so based on how I used it. I used it completely cordially, and gave a heads up on why I replied the way I to your post. But in case you feel up to the task of actually reading this post unlike my other one, I'll repeat myself. I have trouble condensing my thoughts down yet still feeling like I confidently got the informative value of what I wanted to say across.

When someone tells you "I know it's cynical" It means "I ido not mean to make fun of your statement" It mean, "I admit this sounded a bit harsh" It means... Don't take this personally...
That's fine, yet again, if you read my post, I'm not sure why you would even think I "took it personally" (though to actually be pedantic, it's not clear how someone wouldn't take a critique of their stance "not personally" given that it's a personal preference that's being targeted). But I get the colloquial sense of what you're trying to say, and I'm just here to explain, nothing was taken "personal". Not sure why you would waste your time even caring, or leveling this accusation if you were serious about getting your ideas across. In fact, going forward, you have my invitation to act in any harsh manner you please, and rest assured it won't be taken personal as you put it. Don't care much about the tone of a discussion when the topic of conversation is already knee deep. I've been exposed to far too many people start going down this avenue of "tone of the conversation" as an exit tactic from having to properly reply to a person over the topic itself. Don't do that, or if you're going to do it, just say you don't want to talk anymore and be done with it, no need for explanations if you don't actually care.


Maybe in second. Reread that sentence of your's:
-"Speaker amps I don't even use as I only used powered varients (not much a speaker guy, just use Vanatoo T1E's) so I wouldn't even be able to tell you what the objective performance of the DAC and AMP unit in that device even is. Speaker amp performance are a curiosity at best for me... (...)"

My whole point is that you can't rank a DAC (with in the case of the apple dongle the ability to drive sensitive earphones) on the same scale as a speaker Amp. And that Sinad, in both case are a performance metric out of others to assess performance. Now look at the very first sentence I responded to.
Yeah but I already addressed this, and I'm not sure what you think you've achieved here. I CAN AND DO still compare a dongle and speaker amp, precisely because SINAD is cross compatible as a comparison tool. Now you can waste my time telling me "but yeah dude, you also need other things if you're really going to extract value from evaluating a product". But then you'd not be saying anything informative, nor would you be saying anything disagreeable. You made a claim that SINAD is useless. I contested that claim. You moving goal posts now and calling me out for my inability to deduce the implication that pragmatically -SINAD alone isn't enough- doesn't equal -SINAD is useless-

Sorry, that's not going to happen when you make a claim that strong. You don't need to write as much as you did, and keep asking the multitude of questions you did, to come out with the conclusion of the implicit point "you wanted to make" that no one would actually disagree with in the first place anyway (at least no one that I've ever seen or could imagine). That would be perplexingly stupid.



Maybe in third, try to assess where in this discussion I said anything to suggest that "He (I) takes SINAD to be quite literally meaningless in all instances".

Already did that in my long reply, and you can actually track the timeline of how my thoughts develop based on the chronology of your post. But seeing as how you didn't read my reply, I'll answer you here in hopes you do this time. It was the part where you said: "Bottom line, it’s already a bit diminutive to rank device of the same type based only on one metric, Now mixing them all up on this sole metric is to be honest totally meaningless."

Idk about you, but that is how I account for the conclusion I made. Call me crazy if you want. Or perhaps if you take me to be an actual moron, maybe next time give a properly detailed post about what you actually want to say first, and explain how you come to the conclusion, instead of putting me through an interrogation (for what now seems to have been a pointless venture unfortunately). I'm fine with being questioned, that's the best way of eventually coming to a conclusion about someone's true take of something.


Breathe in, Breathe out.

Ahhh yes, of the limited reply you gave here, you conclude like the way you began. More of this divination over computer screens about my physiological and psychological state. Like, please help me understand this part since the actual topic of contention can be set aside for a second. Why do you feel the need to do this? Like, read my mind, and also offer medical advice? Sure if you could see that I'm having a heart attack somehow, I would understand. This isn't a live-chat to where buildups of emotion and compound. This is a forum where we have MORE than enough time to cool off between replies. Even if I was heated, that wouldn't be relevant now. It's not even clear why you would imagine I even WAS heated prior in the first place.. Regardless, can I ask you not do this in future replies? If you're truly want to stop talking, then stop making it seem like I'm some unreasonable lunatic, and just say you're offended on some level and want to move on. Otherwise I really dislike having to bloat my posts more than they already are addressing these off-topic witty one-liners.
 

Tks

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I have no qualms about single SINAD number assigned to any equipment.... as long as that number is supported with graphical results supporting that otherwise 'stoopid' but not "meaningless" number.

Our Amigo @amirm does SINAD right and just exactly the way it supposed to be done!
In my ability to discern what he said in his first actual reply to me, it seems he takes the combination of THD+N (and then the eventual calculation that results in the SINAD number) to be at first diminutive, and when it becomes the SINAD number, to then actually become meaningless.

Call me blind, or insane, but is this literally not what he says here in the following?

Bottom line, it’s already a bit diminutive to rank device of the same type based only on one metric, Now mixing them all up on this sole metric is to be honest totally meaningless.

He can be hinting at something else, but I guess I can't, nor did I spot it reading it prior, nor reading it now.. I welcome all help in deciphering what other thing this possible could be meaning that is being referenced.
 

CedarX

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Where is the output filter on that thing?
PWM carrier frequency is typically around 400KHz square wave from the positive to the negative voltage rails - much higher energy. The filters needed are completely different.
PMA12070 literature claims that the multi-level switching topology of that chip ‘makes filterless operation viable’. There might be some fine prints associated with the claim, but it could be a benefit of the Merus chip vs. the older TPA3118D2 used on the HifiBerry board. IIRC, the TPA3118D2 is the less powerful, but no heat sink required, version of the common TPA3116D2.
 

antcollinet

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Just an observation:

If someone feels the need to answer a post line by line with a wall of text that no-one is going to read, then they should perhaps question if that is a valid use of their time.

Perhaps they are taking the whole thing too seriously. Perhaps they are never going to reach a common understanding. Perhaps it just doesn't really matter. Perhaps it is time to let it go and move on.
 

antcollinet

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PMA12070 literature claims that the multi-level switching topology of that chip ‘makes filterless operation viable’....

Not in any amp I'm going to buy it doesn't :)
 

pseudoid

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Call me blind,
Maybe @PeteL took it somewhat aggressive [as did I, at first read of that word].
It could be because of your avatar that continually stares at the reader, while they are reading your worthy comments.
I have actually thought to use a post-it on your avatar since I was taught that staring is impolite.
Just a thought to ponder!:facepalm:
 
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